Pink 'S' not enough to save trees at sewer project near Sac and Fox trail

The letter “S” painted big and in pink on 28 mature oak and sycamore trees along the Sac and Fox Trail isn't going to be sufficient to save most of them.

Instead, Cedar Rapids city officials on Thursday acknowledged that a contractor replacing a mile-plus-long section of what will be a 16-mile trunk sanitary-sewer line built along Indian and Dry creeks apparently “misunderstood” a contract expectation to take care to work around the 28 mature trees, each with a big, pink “S” on it.

Daniel Gibbins, the city's parks superintendent, said most of the 28 trees will need to come down because the contractor, S.J. Louis Construction Inc. of Rockville, Minn., damaged the trees' roots as workers cut a swath 120 feet wide through the timber along Indian Creek to prepare for the installation of a new, bigger sanitary sewer line.

A handful of the 28 mature trees identified for saving may survive, but “most just can't recover from major construction damage at that age,” Gibbins said.

Rich Patterson, director of the Indian Creek Nature Center near where the first segment of the major, metro-area sewer project is beginning, said Thursday he was “incredibly frustrated” by the damage to the 28 trees.

“It seems like a pretty simple thing. If it's got a big ‘S' on it and you've been told to save the trees, don't take it down,” Patterson said. “Why,” he added, “isn't some city inspector watching this stuff?”

Dave Wallace, the project manager in the city's Public Works Department, said Thursday that the contractor had been told to erect fencing around each of the 28 marked trees at the point where the tree limbs of each tree reached. However, the contractor “didn't protect them,” Wallace said.

In a written statement released Thursday afternoon, contractor S.J. Louis Construction Inc. called the matter a “misunderstanding.” The company said the protection of and removal of trees was discussed “at great length” between bidding contractors and city officials at a pre-bid meeting, but the company said the need to protect trees was not specified in language in an addendum to the contract.

“We will continue to work diligently with the city of Cedar Rapids to rectify any misunderstandings,” the company said.

Meanwhile, the Nature Center's Patterson on Thursday also questioned the need for such a wide clearing of trees and brush to get the new sewer line, a 60-inch-diameter sewer that is replacing a 42-inch one, in place.

“Why did they need to take so many trees down to dig a trench?” he asked.

The city's Wallace noted that the $35-million-plus project is a necessary one, and it is a project years in planning and a joint venture of Cedar Rapids, Marion, Hiawatha, Robins and Linn County. The project will be built in 20 segments and could span 20 years, Wallace said.

Wallace said the sewer pipe is large and he said room for big machinery is needed to get the pipe in the ground.

“So there was going to be a wide path of destruction, and we communicated that pretty well,” Wallace said.

The city's Gibbins pointed out that most of the trees that have come down for the sewer work were “quick-growing bottomland trees without a lot of value,” a characterization with which Patterson didn't necessarily disagree. He said much of what came down had “low ecological quality.”

That was the reason the city made the effort to save substantial trees on the edge of the construction area, Wallace and Gibbins said.

Wallace said the city is meeting with the contractor to determine what compensation might be required of the contractor for destroying trees intended to be kept. The compensation may be monetary or it may involve the purchase and planting of trees, he said.

The $3.578-million construction contract for this piece of the project - called Phase 1 of three phases of Segment 2 of the 20-segment project - already calls for planting 150 new trees.

The city also hopes to find trail funding to move part of the Sac and Fox Trail to higher ground at the current project site, which extends south and north of Mount Vernon Road and is readily noticeable to motorists driving by.

“I can't go to Hy-Vee or anywhere without people accosting me about it,” Patterson said of the cleared trees along the creek. “People are mad.”